In the Darkness
by Yazzy
Summary: [YuBo WAVE] While sitting in the darkness, Bryan thinks about his past, the abbey, and Tala. Yaoi, TalaBryan.


One of my contributions to the YuBo wave. I know it's long for a oneshot but once you read it you;ll understand why I found it a bit difficult to split up...

Bryan muses in the darkness. Enjoy.

* * *

I know it's light outside, but it's dark in here. I can't see anything apart from the tiniest crack of light that's peeking under the door I was just thrown through. Punishment. I've never really needed punishing before, but apparently what I did warrants isolation. And not just isolation, but lights out isolation. They must be seriously pissed off with me to do this. As soon as they can be bothered they'll plug up the little gap under the door and it'll be completely dark in here.

And that'll be when it starts to get at me. People come in here and most of the time they come out raving. And if they don't, they come out dead. I've never worked out how they manage to kill themselves in here because there's nothing in here to kill yourself -with-. But they manage it, and they get carried out in body bags.

Don't commit the crime if you can't do the time, they say.

I don't think I've committed any crimes recently, but I must be wrong.

I don't particularly want to die. And I don't want to go mad either. But you hear stories and you see things...I mean, when Edik got put in here for two days he came out gibbering and talking complete rubbish. It took him three days to say something that made sense, and another two to stop twitching.

It might not seem like such a severe punishment, to be locked in a dark room for a couple of days, but if you think that then you're wrong. In this place, the dark is the thing you learn to fear most. Because they come for you in the dark, to take you away for testing, and the guards patrol in the night, guns glittering and laughing at you in the moonlight. And the darkness forces you to sleep, and sleep is the time for nightmares. All of us in this place have nightmares. It would be stupid to pretend I don't because everyone would know I was lying.

That was why they moved us into private rooms not so long ago- not for our comfort, but because no-one ever got more than an hour of sleep before someone woke us all up with a scream or a cry. And no sleep made for unhealthy boys, and unhealthy boys led to mistakes and ultimately failure.

The other thing about the darkness is the fact that it makes you think. And too much thinking is dangerous, because you start thinking about things like 'What would happen if I threw myself into the river?'. And if you think about that enough you can make it seem sensible and before you know it you're under the ice of the frozen lake, dead and cold and unmissed. If you think too much you can start to hate yourself, and your only and burning desire is to ram a knife into your chest and watch your worthless blood spill out, blood that no-one wanted.

You can try and tell yourself that you're here because they want you, but you know inside that they don't -want- you. You're just a lab rat to them. And if you're used as a lab rat, it means that no-one else wanted you enough to keep you away from all this. And you want to die.

That's what this place makes you feel, but like I said it's rare for people to die in here. Most of the time they just sit with their passionate wish for death and leave without it granted. That's damaging enough. But then there's the fact that you can never know how long you've been in here- a day, a minute, an hour...you can't tell. It's just you and your thoughts, together until you collapse and then reunited when you wake up.

And of course you don't get fed. That's part of the whole thing- to make you mad from thinking, starving from lack of food and stiff and sore from lying on the floor. That's where I am now, with one hand touching the wall. It feels better knowing that there's something there and I'm not just trapped in a massive open expanse of blackness.

After a while you can hear the silence- it buzzes in your ears, and sits behind your teeth, empty and soulless and full of nothing. I hate the silence so much I start tapping my foot on the floor. It's a tiny sound but my ears manage to hear it before the darkness clasps a dirty hand around the tok-tok noise and drags it away.

Somehow being here in the darkness reminds me of a night a long time ago, when I had a nightmare and woke myself and my brother up by screaming. Anton didn't say anything, just patted my shoulder, wiped my tears away with a corner of the duvet and tucked me back in. You might think it strange for him not to have said something comforting, but Anton hardly ever talked. He was eight years my senior, and as a result taller, stronger, and much more intelligent. I adored him.

Once when he spoke to me, he called me 'his little miracle brother'. I didn't understand the word miracle at the time, so he explained it to me and then explained why I was a miracle; after she'd had Anton, my mother became pregnant again, several times in fact, but the babies she had either came into the world already dead or died soon after being born. But I survived, defying all their expectations by being a normal baby in fine health.

So I was Anton's miracle brother and he was my idol. I spent my life trying to copy him, but I usually ended up falling over. But Anton never laughed. If I fell he would pick me up and dust off my knees and send me on my way again. He was my idea of perfection. Looking back now I can see that as role models go, Anton wasn't a very good one. Even before I was born he was mixing with older criminals around where we lived, and as the years went on he became a criminal himself, into drugs and robbery. But he was the only role model I had. My mother died when I was two and my father was a good for nothing drunk who never once spoke a coherent word to me.

The one thing that always gets me is that I never thanked him for looking after me from when my mother died to when he died himself four years later, just before my sixth birthday. I remember him coming into the bedroom where I was playing, bleeding profusely and still as silent as ever. I was no innocent- I had seen violence from the cradle, and I knew that blood running down your cheeks and across your front wasn't a good thing. But in my childish mind it never occurred to me that Anton could die. It was just impossible. So I left my scruffy teddy bear on the floor and went over to him, blinking.

"Bryan." He got to his knees before me and grasped my shoulder, pain in his eyes and written all over his face. "I've made a mistake Bryan." But of course I didn't understand the intricacies of drug dealing back then, so I assumed he meant the kind of mistake you made with a pencil.

"...Rubber?" He had brought me a rubber to use on my silly notebook full of scribbles. It said 'eraser' on the front so I called it Eraser the rubber and pretended it was my pet. But at my word (I didn't much talk in sentences back then) Anton smiled, shaking his head. "Not a mistake in a book. A mistake in people." I nodded as if I understood, reaching up and touching one of the cuts on his cheek. "Bryan, I'm going to go away."

"...Where?" I asked. "...Me?" He didn't need me to elaborate- he was used to me enough to know that I was asking if I would be coming.

"No, Bryan. I'm going to where mother is."

"With stones?"

"No, not in the graveyard. To heaven."

"...Ill?" He shook his head patiently.

"Not ill, Bryan. Hurt. Now listen to me..." I nodded. Whatever Anton said I listened. "I'm going to go away. You have to take Sabine," He nodded to my bear. "And go to where I showed you before."

"...Big man?"

"Yes, the place with the big man. Go there. Tell them your family are all dead."

"Dead?"

"Yes, Bryan." I didn't say anything about my father- as far as we were concerned he didn't exist. But...

"Anton?" He sighed.

"Bryan...I told you. I'm going to heaven. I'm going away."

"Don't!"

"I don't have a choice, Bryan." I stared at him, then started to cry. Anton couldn't go away. I needed Anton. I loved Anton. He was my big brother, he couldn't go to heaven! Only grown-ups went there! I was wailing by the time he hugged me.

He'd never done that before, but at the awakened memory of being clasped against a chest like that I stopped crying, snuggling up to him as if he was my mother. In a lot of ways I suppose he was. He cleaned for me, cooked for me, looked after me... "Shh. Do as I say and go to the big man. He'll find someone to look after you. It's okay Bryan." I was too scared and upset to notice that that was the most Anton had ever said to me. He made me help him up and into his bed, covering the worst of the blood and hiding it from me, not that I realised that it was for that purpose he did it at the time.

And I sat with him, at the end of his bed as I so often had before. And I watched him die. And the whole world seemed dark, just like it seems now.

They've closed the gap. Pitch darkness. I keep expecting to hear the key click in the lock and turn, and I keep expecting to see white coats and cruel smiles and hear excited, horrible voices telling me to get out of bed and come with them. But of course I'm not in bed, and there'll be no-one anywhere near here for at least a day.

I wonder how long it's been? Probably no more than about ten minutes. Funny. From where I'm sitting it could be ten years. My foot's still tapping in the darkness, but I know I can't keep doing that for too long. Trained I may be, but muscles have to be given a break at some point.

So I stop moving and concentrate really hard on Sabine, that scruffy little bear. When Anton first stole her for me she was magnificent, golden furred and fluffy. But over time she wore and turned into a rag-eared, rag-furred scruffball. She was my best friend in the world, because Anton had never let me play with other children around our area. Their parents were gangsters and the children in themselves they were vicious and cruel as wolves. That was what Anton told me. And so I was content to be friends with Sabine, because in my little-boy mind she spoke back to me and liked me as I suspected a friend should.

She was my only friend when I was with Anton, and she was my only friend at the children's home for a long time. None of the other children liked me when I first got there, because I was strange, because I didn't talk right, and because I had no idea how to treat them. People my age were a mystery to me. People younger than me were even more strange. And none of the older boys were Anton, so I didn't care for them. There was one boy my age called Harry, named so by his American mother, who I particularly hated. Because he called me names.

I'd never been called names before, and the idea of someone telling me that I was ugly and stupid didn't upset me, but it made me angry. We were always getting into fights over this and that. And it was there that I started to make the connection between the words that Harry called me and the words Anton had yelled when he stubbed his toe or tripped over. So I used them back.

Once I got into particular trouble for calling him a 'cocksucking bitch'. At the time I had no idea what that meant apart from that it was mean, and looking back now I think the beating I got from the woman who ran the children's home was justified. That doesn't mean to say I liked it at the time, or that I didn't blame Harry. At eight years old, I don't think I was in a position to be rational and adult and let the whole thing lie.

So I decided to get revenge.

I knew Harry was scared of heights- he didn't like climbing at all and when he was made to he was always sick. Once he fainted. Much bigger and stronger than he was, it was easy for me to pull him out of his bed one night and force him to open the bedroom window and lean out. I held his head in a position where he had to look at the floor, feeling satisfied as he whimpered and begged me to let go. But the marks from being beaten for the first ever time were still fresh on me, and I was angry and I was young and I didn't know any better. He was sick, I remember that. It fell the three metre drop to the floor and splattered around.

Not long after, so did Harry. I'm still not quite sure what happened, but one moment I was holding Harry over the ledge and the next I had slipped, tumbling to the floor and at the same time hearing him scream. When I stood up he was gone. So I looked out of the window and there he was, lying on his side. There was a little halo of blood spreading around his head, and a crowd of helpers and staff gathered, gasping and crying. And they looked up and saw me. And that was it.

I was shoved into a room with a locked door for days. A bit like this current punishment, only that time I got fed and they gave me Sabine to shut me up because no matter how badly they thought of me they couldn't just let me cry. If I cried now, no-one would care. I'd probably be slapped for it, or worse.

But little eight-year-old Bryan in his little locked room was scared and confused. My intention had never at any point been to kill Harry, but no-one would or could believe me. Despite never having been aggressive towards anyone else in my life, I was suddenly branded as a problem child when quite the opposite had always been true- over the years I'd become a bit more adjusted and spoke normally and shared my toys and smiled at people. I had a lot of friends. Friends who I've never seen again.

Because after the business with Harry, it was decided that I had to go.

I wasn't sorry to leave the home at first, but when I got to this place I realised that I'd just left paradise and dropped myself straight into hell.

It's funny to think I've been here since I was eight. And in the seven years I've been here- almost half my life- I've never been punished like this before. I guess I've always been used to following orders. I'm never usually one to break the rules. I never disobeyed Anton, nor did I disobey the staff of the children's home. I had great respect for all the adults here when I started, but seven years is a long time and the respect turned into contempt a long time ago.

It's quite cold in here...not cold enough for me to be shivering, but cold enough for my fingers to feel numb. So I'll scrunch them up and pull them into the sleeves of my jacket.

The silence is starting to get to me again. But thinking made me forget it last time, so I'll do some more thinking. Not too much, just a little. A happy memory, something to make me feel good...

Trouble is, I don't have many of those. I suppose I could think about Anton again, and his encouragement that I keep drawing despite the drawings being little more than scribbles. He was always kind to me. If I needed things, he stole them for me. And by being dishonest and stealing he could bring me wonderful things- socks so thick and fluffy that I gasped with shock after first putting them on...pens in rainbow colours, paper by the boxful...

My brother was a wonderful person. A lot of people thought so. He told me about people who came to him with their problems because they knew he could help them. Girls liked him a lot.

No. I won't think about that.

I can't.

Because then the memory will change...and...

"Get on your knees, you cocksucking little bitch!"

NO!

Sabine, Sabine, Sabine. I'll think about Sabine. I still have her. She's buried in the back of the wardrobe. Maybe when I'm done in here I'll get her out and cry over her, like I did all those times when I was younger. When I was scared after killing Harry, before I had the courage to leave my brother's corpse, when I was beaten and abused and-

"Get on your knees, you cocksucking little bitch!" His hands were rough against my skin and his voice was rough, and the way he treated me was rough, yanking me down on the floor in front of him and forcing me to look up at him. He was naked, I was naked, and it was so wrong. I was crying and-

-and when I was given my very first beyblade I remember feeling really proud and...special, in a way. Because I was good enough to be given something of my own, something no-one else had. Well, they did, but no-one had a beyblade exactly like mine. Mine was individual. Mine was different.

I practised so hard with it, with Tala and Spencer and Ian. We were our own little gang, the gang who were deemed the best. Boris-

"Look at me, you cheap little tart." And I looked at him, and I saw hatred in his eyes. Hatred, disgust, lust and scorn. "You're nothing but a prostitute, do you hear me? A prostitute, a whore, to be fucked and fucked until whoever's inside you is done!" He made me nod, forcing my head up and down as if I agreed with him. "And tonight, I'm your customer. And it's your job to invite me in, to touch me, to strip me off and then you have to beg me to fuck you. Do you understand?"

I understood. So I nodded, of my own volition, knowing that if I didn't it would be the worse for me. He liked the idea of roleplaying. I don't think I'll ever understand why. Maybe so he could convince himself that it wasn't really kids he was fucking.

He shut me into the bedroom and knocked at the door. I opened it. "C-Come inside..." And after that I was running on blind panic and instinct as he ordered me through the sequence of events he wanted played out. But when he told me to beg for him, I couldn't do it. So he went one worse.

"Get on your knees, you cocksucking little bitch!"

And then in tears and hysterical, I was made to do exactly what he called me. I hated him. I wanted to bite it off and watch him scream, but I knew that'd end up with me dead. And after that he went on and did the rest, shoving my face into the pillow until I couldn't breathe. But by that point I didn't care. I didn't much want to breathe anymore anyway.

I've deliberately not thought about that since it happened. That's what this darkness does to you, it makes you remember. I wonder, now...maybe a normal person wouldn't go crazy in here. Because normal people don't have any dark memories like that. But all of us in here do. We all have a sob story. There's no pity. Anything that's ever happened to one of us has happened to someone else in here. Me and Tala both had a drunk for a father. But I guess his sob story is better because his father used to beat him. Mine was never sober enough to stand up, and he didn't know who the hell I was anyway.

Tala was brought straight here for killing his father. This place- the complex outside this room- I guess it's a punishment in itself. Everyone here is here because something happened that was wrong. I killed Harry, Tala killed his father, Spencer was being paraded for the sick pleasures of perverts like-

"You cocksucking little bitch!"

Like him. Ian...well, Ian's here because they found him eating a dead dog in a back alley somewhere, I think, but he's been here for so long he can't remember any more. He's just lucky he's ugly, because that way he's never going to have to go through what a lot of the rest of us can add to our records of shit pasts.

I would guess about 80 of the people...well 'students' in this facility have been with Boris, and 79 of those people were forced to. And the other 1 would be Pieter, who is...was...mentally unstable and in possession of a set of psychiatric disorders that, upon hearing about them all, would make a psychologist piss themselves from excitement.

Funny, that I should be thinking of Pieter. He only died a few weeks ago, from a 'routine operation that triggered an unforeseen reaction which resulted in his death'. Which to us students means that he either killed himself (which I doubt he was capable of doing) or he was murdered (a much more likely option). There was no funeral. Of course not. Here we don't have respect for the dead. Because they're dead and they can't do anything about the way we treat them when they're gone.

We don't have religion here either. Well, if you're really looking to find one I suppose you could call ours 'the religion of not pissing off the adults'. Because the adults here, the ones in white coats, are the ones who ultimately play with our bodies while we're asleep. So being nice to them means when you wake up after some modification surgery, you aren't sore and infected. The idea is to not piss them off, but I evidently have or else I wouldn't be in here.

The thing is though, they put you in here and tell you what you've done wrong when they let you out. The idea is that you sit and worry and feel guilty about all of your latest misdemeanours before you find out which one you got punished for, but I don't think I've committed any. Like I said, I'm obedient to most all of the rules. And the ones I have broken such as not using the exact regulation amount of toilet paper are nowhere near so serious as to warrant this scale of punishment.

I wonder how long I've been in here? An hour maybe? I wonder what I'm in for, as well...

The only thing I can think of would be my relationship with Tala, but that's been going on for weeks so either they were too stupid to notice it until now or they've only just decided they don't like it. I think that it must be the Tala thing, but even if it is I can't understand it. I would have thought the freaks who run this place would get off on the fact that two of their recruits are shagging like rabbits, not get angry about it. But in this place you can never be sure when they'll turn round and slap you in the face, literally or metaphorically.

If it is about Tala, then there was absolutely no point in them putting me in here. Because I'm not sorry about it. Even if what we do -is- technically illegal, and even if being in here for it -does- send me stark raving mad, which I don't intend to let it, the punishment won't have fulfilled the purpose of making me feel guilty about fucking Tala until he screams. And our relationship isn't all about the sex- me and Tala actually have a lot in common and we enjoy each others' company.

It's still so dark, and it feels colder than ever. I'll go and sit with my back to the wall, just to make it even clearer to myself that I'm not in the middle of nowhere- there's a wall, there's a barrier, there's an ending. If I squint hard I can just about convince myself that I can see the rest of my body.

I start at my feet. Size nines, encased in thick boots that serve two purposes- to keep my feet warm and dry, obviously, and also to support my pathetic and weak ankles which I seem to spend half of my life twisting and spraining. Then up to my calves. The calves that are under the material are milky white, followed by equally white thighs. And then...well, you know what comes next. I wouldn't call myself an expert on genitalia but Tala always seems satisfied enough with what I have down there. And then my abdomen, toned and rippling with muscle.

I suppose a fine physique is one of the few things I have to thank this place for. None of us are allowed to be anything less than fit, but by that turn we're also not allowed to become too muscled. Naturally, that makes for a good look, a good shape. I prefer Tala's shape to my own, however...mainly because I think his backside is nicer than mine. It's so...squeezable.

God, I sound like a complete pervert. Anyway, back to my -own- body. After my abdomen comes my chest, which is pretty boring as chests go. And my arms are around, arms that taper down into hands, and fingers. I have quite long fingers, but they're nowhere near as long as Tala's, and my hands are absolutely dwarfed by Spencer's. His are like shovels. Ian has little midgety hands, but then for his height I suppose they could be considered normal...

And then my neck, which is, as necks go, quite good, and my face. I think I have a nice face, really. My eyes aren't too wide apart or close together, I don't have a ridiculous nose like -some- people I could mention, and my lips are not too thin and not too thick.

At the moment, as I run my tongue across them, they feel chapped and stretched. But at the moment, that's the least of my problems. I need the toilet. But where the hell is the toilet in here? I'm going to have to get up and walk around to see if there even is a toilet, or something to use as a toilet...

All I can think as I make my way around the room with a hand on the wall is 'this is completely shit'. And it is. Shit, shit, shit. I think it's comforting thinking all of these crude, rude words. I'm feeling about with a foot to see if there's any kind of hole or bucket, but no. Nothing. So that means I'm going to have to find a corner to piss in and then sit as far as I can away from it to try and avoid the smell. I suppose that's one of the parts of this punishment that no-one wants to talk about. Sitting in the same room as the stink of their own urine for a few days isn't the kind of thing anyone in here would want to tell people about.

It's a relief to stand here and piss away in the dark. It makes a noise, for a start.

So now I'm going to walk around the room and find the spot furthest away from the smell. And it's already there, creeping into the air. Disgusting. I suppose that's another way of breaking you. Hungry, crazy, tired, sore, and stinking. Maybe there are other ways that no-one's ever warned me about. But for now I'm going to sink down this piece of wall and think about happy things.

I can remember celebrating my first real Christmas with the children's home. There were presents and lots of cake and sweets, and dancing and singing and crackers and people having fun. I was still awkward and shy then, and sometimes reverted to talking in my old, monosyllabic way. But it was Christmas, and everyone was in uncommonly high spirits. So high in fact that people for once chose me first to be on their teams, and a girl kissed me under the mistletoe.

She was called Ursula, and she was very blonde and very doll-like. Everyone called her an angel and a darling, but in truth she scared me a little. I always wondered if beneath her clothes she was made of plastic or cloth, like a doll. She dragged me under the mistletoe and kissed my cheek. The resulting blush on my face sent all the adults cooing and ahhing, and the other children giggling. And the day went on, happy and boisterous. It was a wonderful day. I think it was the first time since I'd gotten there that I'd enjoyed myself. Because for that one day, Christmas day, no-one called me names, no-one ignored me, and everyone was nice to me.

I've never forgotten how I felt when I went to bed that night. Warm and happy and full of good will for the world.

It took a few years after that first wonderful Christmas before I ever felt that way again. It was when Tala first came to this place, angry, lost and confused. The first night he came he was put in the bed beside mine in the dormitory. I could hear him crying under the blankets after lights out so I went over to his bed and sat next to him. "Who're you?" He stayed turned away from me as he spoke.

"Bryan. Who're you?"

"Tala." Sniffle. Pause. Tala rolled over and I gasped at his bright blue eyes. "Will you be my friend?"

"Yes." How could I refuse him with eyes like that?

I remember entertaining the notion for a long time that Tala's eyes were magical. But like most childish beliefs, it was forgotten. But that first night when he asked me to be his friend- me, Bryan- gave me back that feeling of happiness I hadn't felt in so long.

I think it would be reasonable to say that I've always loved Tala. At first in a platonic way because he was the only real friend I'd ever had and because he was just so completely different from me. And then later on it wasn't just a friendship kind of love any more. We would hug each other and hold hands sometimes, neither of us quite realising that we were straying into something less acceptable to the people in this place. Less acceptable, not unacceptable. I assume we crossed the acceptability divide by actually having sex, but who knows? Maybe they were counting until I'd kissed him a hundred and three times. It wouldn't surprise me.

But if I'm being punished for being with Tala, then that would imply that they want our relationship to stop- to take steps back. I would rather die. Things like this will always sound strange coming from me but I truly love Tala. I won't distance myself from him just because they don't want us to be so close.

The smell in here is unbearable now. It's so strong that I can taste it in the back of my mouth. It's disgusting.

I've probably only been in here a few hours but I'm already hungry. But if I keep thinking about being hungry it'll make it worse. I'll think about something else. I'll think about Falborg-

Chocolate. I love chocolate. We hardly ever get it in this place but when we do it's a rare treat. I love taking it from the wrapper and breaking off a little bit, letting it melt on my tongue, flooding my mouth with that rich, wonderful flavour...

No, I have to stop thinking about food. But telling myself to stop thinking about it now is like when you tell someone not to think about a pink elephant...they immediately do. Food, food, food. Really, the food in this place is rubbish. The occasions when I've -ever- had nice food have been few and far between. I've never been starved, but...well, with Anton the food was always rubbish because he couldn't cook and our oven was always breaking. At the children's home it was rubbish because they didn't have enough money to buy anything nice. And in this place it's rubbish because it's always, day in and day out, the same thing. Exactly this amount of protein. Exactly that amount of carbohydrates. The 'perfect' diet. For the 'perfect; students. The 'perfect' recruits.

Physically, I suppose we are perfect. But inside, none of us in here are anywhere close to perfect. We're all scarred, all flawed, all held back emotionally. We're taught in our psychology lessons that when in battle, any kind of battle, a good strategy is to insult the opponent's mother, causing them to become angry and impairing their judgement. For most of us in here though, the same trick wouldn't work in reverse. Mothers are an alien idea to most of us, and to the ones who had mothers they were either abusive, abandoned their children willingly, or used them as tools for carrying drugs so they couldn't care less. You could call us all sons of bitches and none of us would bat an eyelid.

We're a pretty damaged lot as humans go, but we're perfect recruits. Perfect soldiers.

In Biology classes we learn about the best way to hurt someone. Physical hurt. Pressure points, the easiest bones to break, and how to cause pain without leaving marks.

You know, now I think about it they should rename the subjects we do. It shouldn't be Psychology, Biology, Literature, Maths and PE. It should be Attack-Mental, Attack-Physical, Propaganda, Strategy and Pain. But the subjects are given normal, socially acceptable names and any authorities that come checking will see a limited but perfectly acceptable curriculum rather than a curriculum designed to turn children into soldiers.

And we are soldiers.

God, the smell in here is disgusting! It's making my (painfully empty) stomach churn. Thinking about this place will only depress me. Maybe I'll get up and walk around a little. My legs are starting to go numb, so...

SHIT! Pins and needles, pins and needles! My left foot feels like someone's knifing it! Have to- Stamp it...get rid of the pain...ow-ow-ow!

Well, that was fun.

The walls in here are so cold. Everything is cold. As I feel my way along I wonder if the cold is another part of this whole punishment. To make you sit and shiver, helpless and weak and defenceless.

Because in this place we're taught that it is always best to be defensive, and that to allow yourself to be defenceless is to be a failure. Maybe that's why I'm here. Because they've realised that when I'm with Tala I'm no longer the perfect soldier- I let down my guard and let him into my mind, the one place we're supposed to guard at all times.

Maybe I'm in here because of the toilet roll. Maybe it's a more serious crime than I'd thought it was. Maybe they sat in their little meeting room and said "Kuznetsov- ah- wasting supplies! Lights out isolation for him!"

Maybe they just want to see what'll happen if they shut me in a dark, stinking box for a while. A box. A cage, even. They're treating my like an animal. Maybe I am an animal. Maybe only an animal could kill someone, could sit and watch their own brother die. Maybe I look like an animal, maybe I fight like an animal, maybe I fuck like an animal.

And we're back at that again. Back to me and Tala. So I'll think about him. I'll think about the scar on his shoulder. It's not huge, as scars go- about the length of my little finger. Maybe...three inches? A thin pink scar standing out against his white, white skin. I think it's beautiful, despite the fact that he got it when his father attacked him one time with a broken bottle. It's so thin and delicate, and I think that's why I like it. There aren't many thin and delicate things in this place.

Tala never understands. He just rolls his eyes when I run my fingers over it. "Of all the parts of my body you could touch," He said once. "You choose that one. A horrible, ugly scar." He doesn't understand that I don't find any part of him ugly. But he's very self-conscious. He thinks his hair is an ugly colour- it isn't. He thinks his skin is horrible- it isn't. He thinks his toes are misshapen- they aren't. Of course, he wouldn't admit anything like that to anyone else. He probably wouldn't admit it to me anywhere outside the privacy of our bedrooms.

He can't understand why I like the scar on his shoulder, and I can't understand why he doesn't like his body.

I wonder what he thinks of me being put in here. I suppose I can take comfort from the fact that he isn't suffering like this. This is the only place here that they carry out this punishment in- it's over in a corner, where hardly anyone goes. No-one around to hear you scream. This place would be a lot worse for Tala, because he has a lot more terrible memories than me. Sometimes he shares snippets of his past with me, but I know there's a lot he hasn't told me. Maybe he'll never tell me.

His mother died giving birth to him, so he was brought up- dragged up- by his father, who spent most of his time half pissed. He grew up sneaky and an utterly convincing liar. I honestly don't know how he's still alive. I mean...he basically brought himself up. I can't imagine what that must have been like. I can't even start to comprehend how it must have felt to have a father who cut him and hit him and insulted him and told him he was worthless.

That's the scary thing about Tala. Despite his upbringing...he's so...capable. And rational. When he really puts his mind to something his intellect is scary. But half the time he's afraid to try. And when he gets angry...

Fuck, when he gets angry it's a scary sight to behold. He can take a lot of pushing, but when he explodes, he gets violent and nasty. That was how he ended up killing his father. One punch too many. And he snapped.

But he's never told me exactly what he did.

Maybe he doesn't remember. When he gets really angry he doesn't know what he's doing any more.

He told me one story about his father that always makes me feel like crying. His father came home drunk one day and started beating him. Hitting him until he collapsed. His father, that is, not Tala. So that left Tala...little, tiny Tala, who was probably no more than seven or eight, with blood running down his face and his fat, useless excuse for a parent on the floor next to him. Having to get himself up off the floor, having to clean himself up, having to tend to his cuts...

And that image of tiny, bloody Tala is more than I can bear. I'm crying.

Whenever I think about Tala's life with his father I want to grab hold of him and squeeze him to my chest and never let him go. "I love you, Tala."

The darkness doesn't reply.

But did I expect it to?

I'm still standing here, leaning against the wall. My back is freezing, but on the plus side the smell of piss isn't so strong now. I'm probably just getting used to it, but I'm not complaining.

Yawning feels weird in this place. I don't know why, it just does.

I wonder how long it's been? A few hours? But how many hours? I'm going to sit back down again. Actually, I'm going to lie down, and I'm going to go to sleep.

* * *

The thing about waking up in here is that you don't know how long you've been asleep for. Which is a bit rubbish, really, especially when you're wondering if you've been in here for three hours, thirteen, or what.

Judging by how long I usually sleep- seven or eight hours a night...add to that an hour or two for not being woken by a too-bright light and too-loud alarm...and add that to the about four or five hours I was already in here...at best, it's been fifteen hours, at worst twelve.

The shortest ever time anyone's been in here is twenty-four hours. And the longest is seventy-two straight hours. Usually it's forty-two.

Vanya was one of the very few who have ever been in here for seventy-two hours. He killed himself.

I think I've worked out how people kill themselves in here. And it's horrible.

The only possible way of killing yourself is to hit yourself off the walls- they're stone. The only hard thing in here. I can almost imagine Vanya, tall and well-built, smashing his head off the wall I'm beside until there's blood everywhere. I wonder what dark memory made him do that.

As my own memory serves me, four people have died in here. Four people, four walls.

No matter which wall I lean against, there's death on it.

There's death in all of this place. People kill themselves in here. It's not secret. How can it be a secret?

It's the newer, older ones who do it most. Thrown into the deep end, unable to adjust. It isn't exactly hard to find something to do it with. Steal from the medical supply cupboards, steal from the labs, get someone to hold you underwater or force a pillow over your face. I once heard about one guy carving open his wrists with a knife from the table. A blunt, dirty knife. I still think the worst way to kill yourself is to get someone else to help though.

I think Tala's done it before. Helped someone kill themselves. But he won't talk about it.

Only he went really quiet after Levka died of suffocation.

And he avoided me for a week and more when they found Vladimir drowned in one of the bathrooms.

As good a liar as Tala can be, there are some things he can't lie about. Like death. And some people he can't lie about death to. Like me. Sometimes I wish he would open up to me a little more, but then I realise that he's opened up to me more than anyone, and if I force him and rush him he'll run away from me. When I get out of here, I'm going straight to him. No matter what they tell me to do, I'm going to him and I'm going to tell him I love him, just to be sure he knows and he hasn't forgotten.

I can't stop thinking about death, now.

I keep thinking about Anton. Anton, lying under his covers with his face creased in pain.

Harry and his screaming and his halo of blood.

Vanya. Vadim. Mikhail. Dimitry. Smashing themselves into oblivion.

Levka. Vladimir. All the rest of them. Dirty knives and late night euthanasia.

I feel sick. This whole place makes me sick sometimes. I'm no bulimic, but sometimes, after a meal, after another 'perfect' meal I can't do anything but lean over my own personal, private toilet and force myself to be sick. Because it hits me that the food I've just eaten is given to me on the back of all that death.

And not just the death. The pain. The pain of training, the pain of being beaten for not getting it right, the pain of waking up after an operation.

Not just the death and the pain. There's the misery as well. The misery of knowing you're a soldier, a slave, a guinea pig, a bitch, a whore-

"You're nothing but a prostitute, do you hear me?"

If we were prostitutes, we would be being paid to give up our lives for this place. And we're not.

Well, unless you count the money they put into...improving us.

I say improve, but really I suppose I mean mutate. With the amount of genetic tweaking we've all had done none of us can really be called human anymore. Maybe that's why they treat us like animals. Maybe that's how they came up with the idea of putting me in here, to see how much of an animal I've become. I won't give them the satisfaction of seeing me crawl and gibber though. I won't be like Vanya or Vadim. I certainly won't twitch. It's just not going to happen. They can keep me in here for as long as they like, but this darkness they train us to fear so much won't bring me to my knees. Because I'm angry. I can remember the faces that got carried away from this place in body bags. I won't be like them. I'll show them.

I wonder what time it is? I wonder how many hours have passed now...sixteen, maybe? So at best there's another eight to go. I'll have a piss and then go to sleep again. Sleeping makes the time pass.

Ugh, now the stink is back, rampaging through my nostrils like a wild horse. My feet are clicking on the floor, but the noise stops as I slide down the wall again, letting myself drop to the floor. I'll use my arm as a pillow. It's either that or rest my head on the freezing floor.

* * *

I'm so hungry. I think it was my stomach that woke me up, churning and gurgling in protest. Maybe it thinks my throat's been cut. And the darkness is pressing in on me still, bleak and empty.

I think I can see now why it's so easy for them to teach us to fear the darkness. Because, and it's obvious, it's dark. You can't see in the dark, and not being able to see means people can creep up on you. Thoughts creep up on you as well. Darkness is connected with evil, with malicious thoughts and cruel intentions. They come for you in the dark to show power- we can drag you from your cosy warm bed and force you, in the darkness, to come with us and be reminded all over again that you're a freak, a monster...a plaything. The darkness makes us weak and afraid.

I think I'm starting to understand what it must be like to be blind. There was a blind boy here once. But he didn't last. He was just a little pet project, and when he failed in their expectations he 'died from trauma to the head after falling down a flight of stairs'. Like hell he did. Maybe it says that on his death records, but it isn't the truth.

If I ever get out of this hellhole I might go and see if I can have it changed to 'killed for not being perfect'.

Really, what the people who run this place want is perfection. That's why we're all here. Because they just can't be satisfied with natural ability. They have to pry and test and measure. To modify. To improve.

I don't see any of it as an improvement. I would give anything to turn back time to just after Anton died, so I could not go to the children's home. Then it might have been a lot better for me in the long run. I would have grown up a criminal for certain, but it would be better to be a criminal and human and die like Anton did than not be a criminal and not be human and be here in this cage.

I suppose now is about the time I should start considering suicide. You know, because I'm alive in the midst of all this pain. It would be better to be dead, et cetera. But really, I don't feel like that. I don't want to die. That would mean giving up the things in this place that are actually worth living for. Like Tala. Like Saturday afternoons off to spend as I like. And chocolate. It would mean going down in the history of this place as another guy who couldn't hack it in lights out isolation and smashed himself to death on a wall. So then it would be Vanya, Vadim, Mikhail, Dimitry and Bryan who died in here to the next person to suffer this punishment. 'Yeah, Bryan Kuznetsov, he was the last one to die in here. He was only in for ten hours when he did it, he must have had a terrible past for it to get to him so quickly.'

If I killed myself now people would think that, and that would be an insult to half the people in here who had a much worse time of it as children than I did. Unlike some of them, I had someone to care for me, someone to love me, and I wasn't abandoned by choice. People get brought here when something wrong happens. But it wasn't Ian's fault he was starving enough to eat a dead dog, and it wasn't Spencer's fault that his mother was a money-obsessed bitch who didn't mind exposing her son to anyone who fancied a look. I'm in here because of something -I- did. I killed Harry. I deserve to be here.

In that respect, me and Tala agree. We committed crimes and we know we did. We know this place is a punishment, and we know we did something to deserve it. The thing is...I've never told Tala that what happened with Harry was an accident. Because the first time he ever opened up to me was about his father. I found him crying in the library, so I sat down beside him and asked him what was wrong.

"I'm evil..." He whispered back.

"...Why?"

"Because I just am!" But of course, at the tender age of nine, this didn't seem like a good enough reason to me.

"Why do you think that?" Sniffle, sniffle.

"Because I killed someone. So that makes me evil. I'm the most evil person in the world, they keep telling me so." At the time I didn't realise that they were only doing it to break Tala and to bend him to their will. I just wondered why they hadn't done the same thing to me. "I must be evil as well them."

"Why?"

"I killed someone too." He looked up at me, staring.

"They told me people as old as me never kill people and what I did was very wrong. I'm going to hell."

"I expect I'll have to go with you then." He's always been suspicious, but he was even more so back then.

"You're lying!" Was his angry reply.

"I'm not! There was a boy at the home and I pushed him out of the window!"

"Well I killed my dad! And I meant to do it! So that makes me eviler and I'm going to hell because I'm wicked!" He sobbed.

"Well I meant to kill Harry and they never told me I was going to hell! So you're not going either!"

And that was it. I've kept up that lie for what, six years now? And I intend to take the secret of what actually happened with Harry to the grave with me. If Tala thinks that he isn't the only one who killed someone willingly at such a young age he can feel better about himself, and God knows he likes himself little enough to begin with.

I wonder what he's doing now? Probably reading. No-one would think it, but Tala likes to read a lot. There is a library in this place, but hardly anyone ever goes there. For a start, reading smacks too much of lessons, which everyone tries to forget about when they aren't in them, and as well because the library is Tala's domain. He's like his own little librarian, telling people off for disturbing him and talking, yelling at them for bending over the corners of pages and creasing the spines of the books. He reads like a demon, getting through books in a day that it'd take me weeks to get through. He's in love with the classics...well, he doesn't have much choice as the fiction section is limited and has very few modern books, but still.

War and Peace is his favourite. It's also one of the ones I've never read. Though from his gushing about it I've gathered that it's about old Russia, with too many characters for me to be able to make sense of. Still, each to his own. I'm no bookworm, but I still like the library. It's peaceful. Like Tala's carved himself out a little pocket in the misery of this place and filled it with his enthusiasm for books. It's the closest this place gets to being cheerful.

And there's the fact that there are only a couple of cameras and as a result several places where we can...have fun away from the prying eyes of the adults around here. But in his weird little way Tala still insists on silence, so we don't do anything in there very often.

I'm stiff all over from this stupid floor. My back feels like I've been sleeping on nails. I'll be useless when I get out. If they leave me in for the full 72-hour stretch they'll have to drag me out because I'll have seized up. God, I hope I don't. If I can't move, how the hell am I going to take a piss? I'd have to wet myself, and the prospect of people thinking I'm incontinent is not one I want to face.

I keep thinking about my bed. It might not be the most comfortable of places to sleep, but it's better than the floor in here. My bed. With my pillows, and my duvet. All in my bedroom. With my belongings.

In this place our bedrooms are very private and personal. No-one goes poking into anyone else's room without their express permission. Which is why I'm the only person around here who knows that Tala still sleeps with his teddy bear. You have to understand, I'm not laughing at him or trying to be funny. I do to. But his bear...well, it's not a bear, it's a rabbit with one ear, but whatever. His bear was one his mother picked out and bought for him before he was born. So it's extra-special to him. It took him about four years to trust me enough to show me it. I remember, we were sitting on his bed, not really talking much, just sitting and enjoying each other's company. And he stood up suddenly. "Hm?" Was my way of asking what he was doing.

"I want to show you something."

"What?"

"Well you have Sabine..." He said hesitantly, rummaging in his wardrobe. "And I have Paka." He turned round, holding a bundle of what looked to be rags, but when he held it out to me became a one-eared, scruffy rabbit. "My mother chose him for me when she found out she was pregnant. I read her diaries. So I know she did." Knowing that Tala was sensitive about anything to do with his mother, I took it as if he were handing me the most precious of jewellery.

And then he hugged me. So we were lying on his bed, he on top of me and with Paka squashed between us. We'd never really been that close before, so it was quite a strange experience. But one I liked. Tala felt warm and soft...it was the closest contact I'd had since...well, since Anton really. There were too many people at the children's home for them to bother being affectionate to us. And I don't think Tala was very clued up on hugging either, but we clung together, arms tight and feeling snug and cared for. I fell asleep in the end, and when I woke up I found that Tala had taken the time to drag me next door into my own room to stop anyone finding out what we'd been doing.

He's sweet, actually, in his own strange way. And he loves being cuddled. Tomorrow...um...or is it today? Well whatever, it's either Saturday or close to Saturday, and I intend to spend my afternoon off with Tala in my arms. And possibly between my legs. But considering how sore I'm feeling right now I wouldn't be that much fun in that respect. Still, thinking about Tala is comforting. If I close my eyes and imagine really hard, I can almost feel him next to me, his head leaning against my shoulder. His hand, grasping my own, and his-

SHIT! Jesus Christ, my eyes! "Kuznetsov. 24 hours are up. Get out." I think they have the worst timing in the world. Ever.

"So what did I do?" They have to tell me now. And I can tell them to go and fuck a duck. I'm not giving Tala up-

"Nothing. This was merely a test. You can go and begin your afternoon's break."

And the bastard just walks off and leaves me here! I swear, this place gets worse and worse! But if it is Saturday, and it is the afternoon, then I'm going to the library.

Who knows, Tala might be so glad to see me and so sorry about my 'test' that he'll let us break the silence rule for once...

Fin

* * *

R&R please! 


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